Book:Philosophy

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1.
Philosophy
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Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom

2.
Dualism
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Dualism denotes the state of two parts. Moral dualism is the belief of the complement of or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be moral and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview which has one god, more than one god, by contrast, ditheism or bitheism implies two gods. While bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as good and evil, or light and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a system would be one in which one god is a creator. Alternatively, in ontological dualism, the world is divided into two overarching categories, moral dualism is the belief of the great complement or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. Like ditheism/bitheism, moral dualism does not imply the absence of monist or monotheistic principles, for example, Mazdaism is both dualistic and monotheistic since in that philosophy God—the Creator—is purely good, and the antithesis—which is also uncreated—is an absolute one. This is also true for the lesser-known Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism, duality with pluralism is considered a logical fallacy. Moral dualism began as a theological belief, Dualism was first seen implicitly in Egyptian Religious beliefs by the contrast of the gods Set and Osiris. The first explicit conception of dualism came from the Ancient Persian Religion of Zoroastrianism around the mid-fifth century BC, Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that believes that Ahura Mazda is the eternal creator of all good things. Any violations of Ahura Mazdas order arise from druj, which is everything uncreated, from this comes a significant choice for humans to make. Either they fully participate in life for Ahura Mazda or they do not. Personal dualism is more distinct in the beliefs of later religions. The religious dualism of Christianity between good and evil is not a perfect dualism as God will inevitably destroy Satan, early Christian Dualism is largely based on Platonic Dualism. There is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian Soul. In theology, dualism may refer to duotheism, bitheism, or ditheism, although ditheism/bitheism imply moral dualism, they are not equivalent, ditheism/bitheism implies two gods, while moral dualism does not imply any -theism whatsoever. Dualism can also refer to the relationship between God and creation, a dualism of God and creation exists in some traditions of Christianity, like Paulicianism, Catharism, and Gnosticism

3.
Meditations on First Philosophy
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Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in 1641. The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Métaphysiques, the original Latin title is Meditationes de prima philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking animae immortalitas for animae immaterialitas, as suspected already by A. Baillet. The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain, Descartes metaphysical thought is also found in the Principles of Philosophy, which the author intended to be a philosophy guidebook. He further indicates how the very Scriptures say that the mind of man is sufficient to discover God and his aim is to apply a method to demonstrate these two truths, in a so clear and evident manner that result to be evident. This method he has developed for the Sciences, Preface to the reader Descartes explains how he made a mention of the two questions, the existence of God, and the soul, in his Discourse on Method. Following this, he received objections, and two of them he considers are of importance, the first is how he concludes that the essence of the soul is a thing that thinks, excluding all other nature. To this he says that he has a clear perception that he is a thing, and has no other clear perception. The second is that from the idea I have of something that is more perfect than myself, in the treatise we will see that in fact from the idea that there is something more perfect than myself, it follows that this exists. He says that we have to consider God as incomprehensible and infinite, finally says that the treatise was submitted to some men of learning to know their difficulties and objections, and are answered at the end of it. He has resolved to sweep away all he thinks he knows and to start again from the foundations and he has seated himself alone, by the fire, free of all worries so that he can demolish his former opinions with care. The Meditator reasons that he need only find some reason to doubt his present opinions in order to him to seek sturdier foundations for knowledge. Rather than doubt every one of his opinions individually, he reasons that he might cast them all into doubt if he can doubt the foundations, everything that the Meditator has accepted as most true he has come to learn from or through his senses. He acknowledges that sometimes the senses can deceive, but only with respect to objects that are small or far away. The Meditator acknowledges that people might be more deceived, but that he is clearly not one of them. However, the Meditator realizes that he is convinced when he is dreaming that he is sensing real objects. He feels certain that he is awake and sitting by the fire, though his present sensations may be dream images, he suggests that even dream images are drawn from waking experience, much like paintings in that respect. Even when a painter creates a creature, like a mermaid

4.
Simulated reality
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Simulated reality is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from true reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be aware that they are living inside a simulation. This is quite different from the current, technologically achievable concept of virtual reality, virtual reality is easily distinguished from the experience of actuality, participants are never in doubt about the nature of what they experience. Simulated reality, by contrast, would be hard or impossible to separate from true reality, there has been much debate over this topic, ranging from philosophical discourse to practical applications in computing. The simulation hypothesis was first published by Hans Moravec, later, the philosopher Nick Bostrom developed an expanded argument examining the probability of our reality being a simulation. His argument states that at least one of the statements is very likely to be true,1. Human civilization is unlikely to reach a level of technological maturity capable of producing simulated realities, any entities with our general set of experiences are almost certainly living in a simulation. In greater detail, Bostrom is attempting to prove a tripartite disjunction, epistemologically, it is not impossible to tell whether we are living in a simulation. For example, Bostrom suggests that a window could pop up saying, nonetheless, should any evidence come to light, either for or against the skeptical hypothesis, it would radically alter the aforementioned probability. Computationalism is a philosophy of mind theory stating that cognition is a form of computation and it is relevant to the Simulation hypothesis in that it illustrates how a simulation could contain conscious subjects, as required by a virtual people simulation. For example, it is known that physical systems can be simulated to some degree of accuracy. If computationalism is correct, and if there is no problem in generating artificial consciousness or cognition, however, the relationship between cognition and phenomenal qualia of consciousness is disputed. It is possible that consciousness requires a vital substrate that a computer cannot provide, and this would undermine Nick Bostroms simulation argument, we cannot be a simulated consciousness, if consciousness, as we know it, cannot be simulated. However, the hypothesis remains intact, we could still be envatted brains, existing as conscious beings within a simulated environment. This argument states that a Platonic realm or ultimate ensemble would contain every algorithm, Hans Moravec has explored the simulation hypothesis and has argued for a kind of mathematical Platonism according to which every object can be regarded as implementing every possible computation. A dream could be considered a type of simulation capable of fooling someone who is asleep, as a result, the dream hypothesis cannot be ruled out, although it has been argued that common sense and considerations of simplicity rule against it. One of the first philosophers to question the distinction between reality and dreams was Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher from the 4th century BC and he didnt know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi, but he didnt know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi

5.
Mind
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The mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory. It is usually defined as the faculty of an entitys reasoning and it holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions. One open question regarding the nature of the mind is the mind–body problem, pre-scientific viewpoints included dualism and idealism, which considered the mind somehow non-physical. Modern views center around physicalism and functionalism, which hold that the mind is identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity. Another question concerns which types of beings are capable of having minds, the concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different cultural and religious traditions. Some see mind as a property exclusive to humans whereas others ascribe properties of mind to non-living entities, to animals, important philosophers of mind include Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Searle, Dennett, Fodor, Nagel, and Chalmers. Psychologists such as Freud and James, and computer scientists such as Turing, the original meaning of Old English gemynd was the faculty of memory, not of thought in general. Hence call to mind, come to mind, keep in mind, to have mind of, the word retains this sense in Scotland. Old English had other words to mind, such as hyge mind. The meaning of memory is shared with Old Norse, which has munr, the word is originally from a PIE verbal root *men-, meaning to think, remember, whence also Latin mens mind, Sanskrit manas mind and Greek μένος mind, courage, anger. The generalization of mind to all mental faculties, thought, volition, feeling and memory. The attributes that make up the mind is debated, some psychologists argue that only the higher intellectual functions constitute mind, particularly reason and memory. In this view the emotions — love, hate, fear, joy — are more primitive or subjective in nature and should be seen as different from the mind as such. Others argue that rational and emotional states cannot be so separated, that they are of the same nature and origin. In popular usage, mind is frequently synonymous with thought, the conversation with ourselves that we carry on inside our heads. Thus we make up our minds, change our minds or are of two minds about something, one of the key attributes of the mind in this sense is that it is a private sphere to which no one but the owner has access. No one else can know our mind and they can only interpret what we consciously or unconsciously communicate. Broadly speaking, mental faculties are the functions of the mind